Slowing down--my posts have definitely slowed-down since August elbowed into my life. There hasn't been one weekend that I've been around in August, and that means no Sundays at the new farmers market up the street from my house. But down the street from my house, Mt. Hope Cemetery is looking beautiful, as it usually does (I don't mean to sound morbid but it is as lovely a piece of landscape as there is in Acton. I've watched it change with the seasons for 32 years now and it never fails to delight me. I've jogged its roads, walked its trails, walked an increasing number of family pets, taught both daughters to ride bikes and to drive, all within its leafy, protected confines).
Right now, the old row of hydrangeas is about to turn pink, and from pink to mauve, then from mauve to copper. The trees must have been planted by an expert landscaper who knew how much room the flowers needed to show off their big-bosomed blooms!
For several days running I’d been seeing a tall, lean man working on the roof of the little storage building in the cemetery. One morning, as I walked by, I saw him coming down off the ladder and I asked if he were finished. “Yes, all done, but I wish I had more to do here,” he added a little wistfully. I asked what he meant and he said, “It’s been so nice being here. It’s so peaceful and you meet the most interesting people.” He wasn't joking. Besides the blue-blooded Yankee characters buried in Mt. Hope (with names like Hapgood, Weatherbee, Turnbull, Adams, Hoar and Mead--to name a few!), you're likely to meet many of your neighbors in the cemetery, out walking, or rollerblading, or X-country skiing for sure. There are the regulars like the 6:00 AM man who visits his wife's grave daily (he seems so sad); and the guys walking as therapy recovering from by-pass surgery. But the image that sticks in my mind so vividly is a birthday party for a three year old, replete with party hats and games and a cake(I bet you were wondering how in the world I was going to tie this post in with food!), all set-up right there in Mt. Hope Cemetery.
Another clear memory is of a young mother walking along the cemetery's lanes, slowly, patiently, hands in pockets, staying a few steps behind a little girl on a pink bicycle tilting menacingly on training wheels. The mother seemed a little bored. I stopped and smiled and commented to her how my own 2 daughters had learned to ride their bikes in this same place. She wanted to stop and chat but was reluctant to widen the gap between her and the bike. That was 15 years ago? I well remember what it was like spending long, long days with a pre-schooler, making up games, arranging play-dates, reading aloud E B White and holding onto the seat of a wobbling bike, straining for adult conversation, waiting for my husband to return home that would mark the end of that day, consuming days and weeks and even years in this way. And now, when each day begins abruptly with tasks and to-do's, the minutia of home maintenance, and ends in what seems like an instant, I can't believe I had days like that. And that that huge part of my life is passed. I remember seeing 1 small perfect pumpkin on a grave around that time, too.
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